


Meta Conversation: Verbal Echoes in Season 13

by Andromytta, dimplesofdiscontent



Series: Season 13 Meta [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Meta, Meta Conversation, Season/Series 13
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-08
Updated: 2019-01-08
Packaged: 2019-10-06 13:22:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17345978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Andromytta/pseuds/Andromytta, https://archiveofourown.org/users/dimplesofdiscontent/pseuds/dimplesofdiscontent
Summary: Meta conversation with Tumblr users Andromytta and emblue-sparks (formerly Sactownbrowns3)season 13 meta, destiel meta, use your words, miscommunication, 13x20, spn writers' room, singular vs plural, romantic vs familial love, want vs need, past canon, spot the difference, narrative structure, verbal echoes, positivity, my meta





	Meta Conversation: Verbal Echoes in Season 13

[](http://andromytta.tumblr.com/post/174194353348)

 [andromytta](http://andromytta.tumblr.com/post/174194353348)

And I hope some of the real meta writers out there (I just dabble) may have some thoughts on this.

Taking three of our biggest Destiel moments and giving them to other people. Dean saying “Morning, Sunshine” to Lucifer,  Sam saying “I need you” to Gabriel and Jack saying “I love you.  I love all of you” to Sam.  

With all the things they did in season 13 to get our hopes up, they also did that.  It bothers me, and I can’t quite put into words why that is.  Maybe someone else can wrap their beautiful meta mind around it?  

Maybe [@sactownbrowns3](https://tmblr.co/mxikrS7hL_vrgN1flq9puZA) ?

 

 sactownbrowns3

[@andromytta](https://tmblr.co/m66tJBW2NvYi0q_6qtbLyZg) [@dimples-of-discontent](https://tmblr.co/mBzxZfk0sVJF5PU_Vag3fYQ)

Goodness, thank you for considering me someone who’s occasional ravings are worth reading❤️Omg I literally wrote dimples about this today, this afternoon. I was going to put it in my reblog of her negative spaces post but decided I’d try to keep my salt and negativity to a minimum.

Now this is only one  _ **thought**_. I cannot even call it an  _opinion_  or  _interpretation_. Only something that hasn’t let me be. And I invite anyone to provide the other side of the coin(positive side) to contribute here as I really don’t wish for this to be even considered speculation at this point, and surely some of it is born from my post finale devastation. But…(sorry dimples, I just stole this from the message box!)

So also I’ve had something niggling at me with the misplaced destiel quotes this season.

1-Lucifer “ _Morning Sunshine”_

2-Sam “Gabriel,  _we need you. I need you_ ”

3-can’t remember(?)I swore there was another?

4-Jack “ _I love you, all of you_ ”

Some fans were in an uproar, I understand. Yet for some reason this didn’t bother me. It initially felt like a comparison, to show the differences between our guys and others who use them in an entirely alternative context. I thought it was a really bad idea, but didn’t phase me too much because it felt like an apples to oranges comparison which frankly each time missed the mark(imo).

But then I remembered Gabriel’s kill list. Loki and his 3 sons. He crossed them off one at a time.  _Saving the most important for last_. So seems like maybe there were 4 quotes used and 4 names on the list. Dean saying his thing to Lucifer, Sam caring for Gabe of course but firstly wanting to use him to get mom back, can’t remember the 3rd for some reason(somebody please jump in!) and Jack…I absolutely loved him saying it, but it was not of course meant romantically.

Which is my point. What if those quotes were chosen,  _the last being the most important, most significant_ , like Gabriel said for his kill list…..as a means of taking those quotes…ALL of which were regurgitated in the 2nd half of a season with the shittiest level of relationship communication for DISSOLUTION. Neutralizing Destiel. Everything for Dean and Cas has come to a screeching halt and this season has even gone backwards.

I don’t know, but the lack of a bookend and destiel feeling so damn flat…maybe its messing with my head. Maybe we’ll get far better communication between them but only as friends. I really hope it’s more than friends, but it just seems like someone MAJORLY dropped the ball and there’s been a disconnect somewhere up the line..

Ok again, this is only a thought. I’m in a bad place right now with the show. Not nearly as bad as the first few days after the finale, I can still separate my disappointment and look at some stuff rationally. This is me losing my faith in Destiel. Not lost, as in gone completely, but seriously wavering. You asked. I hope someone else can add a more positive note and gimme a u turn.

[@thetwistedwillow](https://tmblr.co/mCDxB69fv2GTq9FtVCOI_DQ) [@naruhearts](https://tmblr.co/mSydB_1ug2cd-c-bcb5iPtA) we could use some positivity right about now😘

 

[](https://dimples-of-discontent.tumblr.com/post/174198584176/so-heres-a-thing-ive-been-thinking-about)

 [dimples-of-discontent](https://dimples-of-discontent.tumblr.com/post/174198584176/so-heres-a-thing-ive-been-thinking-about)

Haha, @sactownbrowns3 I got SO confused when I saw this post because I was like “but this….is in my DMs….but it is…also here???”. It’s been a long week even though it’s Wednesday and my poor brain is somewhat fried. And @andromytta, yes, this is definitely something that’s been bugging me and that I hadn’t figured out what to do with either so thank you for pointing it out.

I’m going to go ahead and bang my positivity gong, as much because it is helping me get out of a bad headspace about this as because I necessarily think it’s the more plausible interpretation. I’m still working on the FEELINGS side of my response to the back half of this season; my overall sense is still that either there was a directive from somewhere to back off the romance plot or the writers felt that they had gone too balls-out for how long the show was meant to last and had to backtrack. But I am also finding it helpful on a persona level to see how things might not be as negative as I initially thought, so, here I am!

I also cannot think of what the additional phrase would be (aside from the “NOOOO!” for leaving Gabriel in the AU that @elaspn mentioned in their comment) but three is kind of enough to work with. I like the symbolic connection to the kill list, although I guess I have more trouble seeing it as meta-commentary by the writers since it’s clearly lifted from Tarantino. But, point taken, it does seem like they compiled some of our Greatest Hits for romantic Dean/Cas lines for some specific purpose. But what?

The two I am focused on and that seemed the most deliberate were “We need you; I need you” and “I love you, all of you.” What’s the point of these callbacks to the 8x17 crypt scene (which is even more significant since cast, writers, and fans all know that it was initially an “I love you”) and the 12x12 deathbed confession–arguably the two most blatantly romantic Destiel scenes of all (at least from a GA perspective). If you assume it’s intentional then there are only two options, the positive one and the negative one. The negative one is, as you say above, to “neutralize” the phrases and be like “Jeez stop freaking out about it; it’s just a thing that characters say!”. This interpretation makes me think of the fantastic piece of crack with 12x12 where Cas starts to add in more things after he says “I love all of you” ending with “I love lamp”, “I love this sofa”, etc. to undercut the seriousness of the declaration. Although there, of course, the joke is that we know that what Cas is trying to do is hide its real meaning. The writers would be trying instead, in this negative light, to divest those phrases of their romantic resonance.  _Which means they know that they have them!! Even if we lose, we win!_

(I’m picturing the writers squinting at previous episodes going, “How do we un-gay this? Holy shit, that’s going to be tough!”. And anyone who thinks they don’t know how romance trope-y it is can go check out “Timeless” where Kripke is pulling out all the best DeanCas tropes for his love interests.)

The positive interpretation is that the reiteration of these phrases in distinctly non-romantic contexts actually highlights the degree to which they  _were_  romantic before. This was my initial reading of it too, as you said yours was, and I’m sticking by it. It works kind of as a “spot the difference”; it’s not the words themselves that are non-platonic but the context, the delivery, all the rest of the actions that make up the scene. When Sam said “I need you” to Gabriel he was not kneeling at his feet, looking up into his eyes through blood and grabbing onto the hand that was beating him in order to try to break through mind control. When Jack said he loved Sam he looked right at him before adding in that he loved the rest of his family too; he didn’t avoid his eyes because he couldn’t bear to see his feelings not being returned. The words on paper might be the same but that actually demands that we pay  _closer_  attention to the context and ask ourselves what is different–what could POSSIBLY be different–about Dean and Cas. (We just don’t know. 🐦) 

As for the kill list parallel (which, again, I really like as an analogy even if I am disagreeing with the conclusions it leads to) with these lines being a way to “kill” the Destiel moments…didn’t we also hear about how cyclical and unsatisfying revenge is? It would be just as hollow and unsatisfying to try to remove from the story a relationship and plot line that is so integral to it that the story and characters basically fall apart without it. I can tell you that if they do try to excise it, to “kill” the moments that make it compelling and moving as a love story, they will end up killing the narrative. And maybe that will happen. But, for now, I’m choosing to believe it won’t.

That’s probably not enough for a U-turn but hopefully maybe it helps a bit!


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